Systemwide Events Calendar

The Big Bang Theory, Inflation, and the Multiverse with Alex Filippenko, UCB

Professor Alex Filippenko will present compelling new evidence for the rapid expansion of the early universe found from exquisite studies of the cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the big bang. Natural extensions of these ideas suggest that our Universe may be part of a grander structure known as a “multiverse,” and possibly quite rare in terms of having complexity and life.

Alex Filippenko, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, is a world-renowned expert on some of the most dramatic fields in astronomy, including exploding stars, black holes, active galaxies, and cosmology. He is the recipient of numerous prizes for his scientific research, and he was the only person to have been a member of both teams that revealed the Nobel-worthy accelerating expansion of the Universe. Voted the “Best Professor” on the Berkeley campus a record nine times, he has produced five astronomy video courses with The Great Courses, coauthored an award-winning astronomy textbook, and appeared in about 100 TV documentaries. In 2004, he received the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.

Free tickets are required and exclusively available at http://uhifa.ticketbud.com Do not call Kennedy Theatre. NOTE: Latecomers with tickets may not be seated, as people without tickets will be seated on a first-come, first-seated basis starting at 7:20 p.m.